


Bugger The Deep Roads

by todisturbtheuniverse



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 08:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1892100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carver hates being left behind. He didn’t expect he’d end up liking it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bugger The Deep Roads

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by commandercousland on Tumblr: How about a Carver/Merrill FF that takes place during the time Hawke is in the deep roads?

The day that his brother leaves for the Deep Roads, Carver sets out to get drunk. He doesn’t do that often; these excursions are reserved for truly _righteous_ anger, the kind that threatens to eat him up inside if he doesn’t feed it something.

That  _something_  is alcohol, and there’s only one place he can afford to get it.

He shoulders into The Hanged Man just as the sun dips below Kirkwall’s tall buildings. Isabela hangs on the bar, already deep in her cups, her cheeks dark with color, her arm around Merrill.

"And  _then_ ,” she says as Carver approaches the pair of them, “he says—”

"Carver!" Merrill interrupts brightly, beaming at him. She looks a little drunk, too; her gaze doesn’t quite focus on him. "What are you doing here?"

He always fumbles the first few words, and she looks at him so patiently, with half a smile, like she doesn’t notice his stumbling. “I—er—I came to drink,” he says, like that explains  _anything_.

"She  _meant_ ,” Isabela said, her voice quivering with amusement, “why aren’t you in the Deep Roads?”

Corff pushes a mug to Carver across the bar. Carver gives him three bits in return. “Garrett left me here,” he tells his drink, working to keep his voice even.

Merrill gasps. “He didn’t!”

He glances up. Her eyes are wide with shock. He’s a little touched at the emotion she feels on his behalf.

"I see you two didn’t make the cut, either," he says, smiling a little now, and takes a swallow of his rank ale.

"The Deep Roads are no place for pirates and elves," Isabela replies with a shudder. "I didn’t want to go. Not that he asked.”

"I wouldn’t have minded, I suppose," Merrill says thoughtfully. "I bet they’ll find all sorts of interesting things down there. But it’s fine that he didn’t ask. I don’t mind that, either."

"Well," Carver says, raising his drink. "Cheers, then."

"Cheers," they agree, clinking their mugs against his.

* * *

"He took  _Anders_ ,” Merrill comments an hour later, in the middle of a round of Wicked Grace. They’ve moved to their usual table in the corner, and Carver has already lost track of how many drinks he’s paid for. “I always thought he hated the Deep Roads.”

Isabela snorts into her drink. “I bet that took some…convincing.”

Carver groans. “There are things I don’t want to imagine about my brother, you know.”

"What things?" Merrill asks, brow furrowed.

Isabela ruffles her hair affectionately. “Don’t worry about it, kitten.”

Merrill deflates, looking down at her cup. “No one ever wants to explain anything to me,” she says, a little forlornly.

He wouldn’t say it if he wasn’t halfway drunk, but as it is, the words spill out of his mouth. He doesn’t like the downcast cant of her green eyes.

"She means that my brother fancies the abomination," he tells her, and he’s just drunk enough to not sound resentful about it.

"Oh." Merrill blinks, and then her eyes go round as saucers. " _Oh_.”

Isabela laughs so hard that her ale sloshes over the rim of her mug, and then they’re  _all_ laughing, even Carver, who almost chokes on his drink in the process.

"And Anders likes him, too?" Merrill asks, when her laughter has subsided into infrequent hiccups. "He’d have to, I suppose, to follow him to the Deep Roads."

"I can only imagine all the mischief they’re getting up to down there,” Isabela says, a dreamy look in her eyes.

"Yeah, you know, I’m starting to be very glad that I wasn’t invited," Carver replies, still chortling.

Merrill grins and hiccups again. “Is it because we’re such good company?”

"Well,  _you_  are, anyway,” he says, grinning back at her.

"Oh, Maker," Isabela sighs, letting go of her cards at last. "I’m not drunk enough for this. You two have fun."

She saunters off, a sway in her hips, while Merrill peers at her exposed cards.

"Damn," she curses, dropping her own hand. "She  _always_ wins.”

"Well, it’s just you and me now," Carver says. He thinks it’s an unexpectedly smooth sentence, all things considered. "Maybe your chances have improved."

Merrill reaches across the table for his cards, the corners of her mouth curving up. “I think so,” she agrees, very seriously. “You always smirk when you have a good hand. It looks a bit like Garrett’s. Except he always looks that way, even when he  _doesn’t_ have a good hand.” She pauses, shuffling with a look of extreme concentration. “I like yours better. It always looks like he’s hiding something behind that beard.”

Carver chokes on his ale again, and even as he’s half-coughing, half-laughing, she’s smiling—a little shy, but proud, too.

Bugger the Deep Roads. He likes it just fine right here.


End file.
